Search Results for: The Postal Service

Lately, it seems like Travis Barker’s schedule consists of puking in his bathroom, taking illicit smoke breaks before meeting with his wedding planner, chewing out said wedding planner and then buying punky Dior purses for his wife, Shanna. At least, that’s what we’re led to believe on “Meet the Barkers.” But it turns out the former Blink-182 drummer and current star of reality TV has been really, really busy as of late, cranking out tunes for his electronic side project, Plus-44, which he formed with Blink’s Mark Hoppus and Carol Heller, formerly of Cali-punks Get the Girl. When MTV News… Read more »

Los Angeles – Before they made the jump to Atlantic Records in 2004, the members of Death Cab for Cutie thought long and hard about leaving Seattle’s Barsuk Records. But after six years of deliberation, and the ultimate satisfaction the band took in its decision, manager Jordan Kurland grants that there has been a twinge of remorse. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that after I saw Bright Eyes debut in the top 10, I didn’t think, ‘Ah, we should have done that…’ But we’re having a great time.” Indeed, the band Bright Eyes bolted to No. 10 on… Read more »

You can’t get the question right. You’re fumbling for the right words but all you can hear are the lyrics to “Age of Consent” over and over and over again in your brain… It’s almost too easy to toss the word “influential” in front of a band to hype up its place in the pop-music pantheon. Few acts deserve it, and the word is so damn relative. But the culture mill spits out thousands of new bands each year and inevitably even the most wanly creative gets the “influential” stamp if it can hang in there long enough. So, then… Read more »

Mike Patton probably owns a Blackberry. The former Faith No More and Mr. Bungle frontman has always juggled his many musical whims like the finest project manager, but in 2005 his personal digital assistants might need their own personal assistants. The 37-year-old musician has recruited Oakland, California, DJ crew the X-ecutioners for his latest project, General Patton Vs. the X-ecutioners. Released February 22, Vs. is a characteristically varied affair, featuring the general’s vocal acrobatics, skittish needle-dropping and quick cut-and-paste genre changes. And, like a growing number of musical collaborations, most notably the Postal Service, the songs were all completed via… Read more »

Maybe you can blame it on some indie-minded guilt. On March 1, Death Cab for Cutie – longtime independent stalwarts recently inked to Atlantic Records – will drop The John Byrd EP, the final release for them on tiny Seattle label Barsuk Records. The EP will only be available in two places: on Barsuk’s Web site or in record stores who are members of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. It could be the result of a guilty conscience. But it’s more than likely not. “We just wanted to have a properly recorded live record out there, because bootlegs show… Read more »

Los Angeles – Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz continued their reign on the year-end Top Independent Albums chart for the second year in a row. The self-proclaimed “Kings of Crunk” finish the year with two of the top five titles on the indie chart. After breaking through in 2003, the Atlanta-bred party-rap trio of Lil Jon, Big Sam and Lil Bo remained steady sellers throughout 2004. The act’s BME/TVT release “Kings of Crunk” has spent more than 100 weeks on the Top Independent Albums chart, and has now led the chart two years running. To date, the album… Read more »

New York – The upcoming Nirvana box set, “With the Lights Out,” features 18 previously unreleased audio tracks and four video clips from the archives of venerable indie label Sub Pop, to which the Kurt Cobain-led band was signed early in its career. Included are three Leadbelly covers recorded in August 1989 at Seattle’s Reciprocal Studios, with assistance from Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan and then-Trees drummer Mark Pickerel. Cobain had designs on forming a group around these players, to be named Jury or Lithium, but it never materialized. “When Lanegan was in the studio recording… Read more »

ock trio Sleater-Kinney has signed with venerable Seattle label Sub Pop Records after releasing its past four albums for fellow indie Kill Rock Stars. The group will begin recording its Sub Pop debut Thursday with producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) in upstate New York, with an eye on a May release. “We instigated it because we wanted to do something different,” vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker told Billboard.com. “We really like the team that’s at Sub Pop now. There are people there who are really enthusiastic and putting out really good music. We’ve done a lot of records with Kill… Read more »